Smile
by Kaluki
Summary: Why should the demon smile? What could there be in a world of suffering to make the pariah laugh?


**Summary:** Why should the demon smile? What could there be in a world of suffering to make the pariah laugh?

**Disclaimer:** Naruto isn't mine.

**Authors Notes:** Le gasp! A second update, on the same day? Where's the apocalypse?

* * *

**Smile**

The boy smiled, a trademark, Cheshire cat grin that set his eyes dancing and sparkling like the sky above him. He was covered in paint, flecked over his orange jacket and spattering his unique whisker-mark scars. There was even paint on the back of his head, from where he'd rubbed a green-smeared hand against his hair. But now his hands were tied and some of the paint was rubbing off his as his sensei dragged him back to class, grumbling all the while about his latest annoyance.

The people of Konoha frowned at him in disapproval, glancing up to the Hokage monument and shaking their heads in outrage. And Naruto grinned wider, and his eyes danced brighter, because they noticed him, and because there was a reason why they glared at him. Just for a short time, while the paint remained on the Hokage monument, there was a reason.

Naruto couldn't help it; he smiled and he laughed, and when Iruka told him off again, he was too happy to be repentant of what he'd done, and too excited to take his sensei's words to heart. He was too busy smiling, too busy _existing_ because he'd been seen, and it was too wondrous a thing to lose.

--

The boy smiled, a trademark, Cheshire cat grin that creased his eyes until they could barely be seen. And he laughed, a wild, unrestrained sound as he danced down the street with his bag of next week's instant ramen clutched protectively to his chest. And the people of Konoha glared at him, and whispered to each other behind their hands, and turned their backs so they wouldn't have to look upon it, as it danced down the road and laughed at the sky.

But that didn't matter, because he couldn't see them through his squinty smile, and he couldn't hear them over his raucous laughter. And it didn't matter, because he didn't exist while they didn't acknowledge him, and so he wasn't there to hurt anyway. He was… somewhere else, or maybe nowhere at all, and the people treated his marionette with disdain, but it didn't matter because he wasn't there.

He'd grown up like that, grown up not there. He hadn't been there for most of his life, because even when the people didn't glare at him and whisper about him, he didn't know how to act or what to do. And so he hid again, and only ever existed when he made it so that they saw him.

--

The boy smiled, a trademark, Cheshire cat grin that narrowed his eyes into a predator's feral gaze. The missing nin sneered at him derogatorily for breaking his cover so early in the game, for showing his hand and filling the woods with an ocean of orange. It was the mark of an inexperienced genin, she taunted him; didn't he know that ninjas were famed for their stealth?

A thousand Narutos raised their hands, kunais glinting in the dappled sun. The kunoichi smirked, hands flying through the seals for an earth dome. But when it rose, Naruto was inside it with her, and he smiled as her eyes finally widened and, even in the dark cover of the dome, she saw him – outlined in blazing chakra, clawed fist already closing around her throat.

He dug her a grave, after it was done. A good grave too, with her headband hung from a stone as a makeshift shrine – she deserved it, because she'd seen him. As the light faded from her eyes, she'd feared him – and she hadn't even known of the demon fox he carried. He smiled at her grave, a soft smile that only the dead had seen, only those like her who had seen him as they died.

--

The man smiled, a trademark, Cheshire cat grin that set his eyes dancing and sparkling like the skies of his youth. She knelt over him, strawberry hair hanging in her eyes and hands flashing desperately at her commands. He strained to hear what she was saying, a babbled, pleading litany of words he couldn't catch – as if he were underwater, floating aimlessly in a sea of red.

But his eyes – oh, how clearly he could see now, see the shock and the sorrow on all their faces. He laughed, and she chastened him; but when in his life should he laugh, if not now? So he laughed again, the sound light and joyous as it had never been, and he couldn't understand their horror filled faces, or the blood that filled his mouth.

She was begging now, chakra-filled hands fluttering around his throat. Stop, she was telling him, you'll die, she was warning him. And he lifted his hands towards her as if in supplication, calloused thumbs tugging at her cheeks to make her smile. But she couldn't smile, so the man smiled for her, a smile that made her bow her head in shame even as she wished it would never fade.

--

The boy smiled, a trademark, Cheshire cat grin that set his green eyes dancing and sparkling in honest joy. He was covered in paint, flecked over his orange jacket and spattering his whisker-marked cheeks. There was even paint on the back of his head, from where he'd rubbed a blue-smeared hand against his pink hair. But now his hands were tied and some of the paint was rubbing off his as his sensei dragged him back to class, grumbling all the while about respect for the hokage monument and dire punishments to come.

And, bedecked in artistic swirls and colourful strokes, Naruto smiled.

- _Fin -_

--


End file.
